Outlook: How to Deal with War Monks?

Abstract

The brief concluding chapter will focus on the question of how to deal with the Buddhist preachers of hate, or ‘war monks’ as they are sometimes called. Could their respective Sangha hierarchies or their states move against them and bring them to justice? Could we deny them the ‘oxygen of publicity,’ as Margaret Thatcher once famously quipped in context with the Irish Republican Army (IRA)? Could we simply ignore them? Or would it be possible at all to reform the Theravāda Buddhist Sanghas in a way that would lead them back to charismatic devotion and abstention from politics—that is, back from trying to act as ‘world conquerors’ in favour of being ‘world renouncers’? The verdict for all of that will be of a rather pessimist ‘don’t hold your breath’ kind.